


Interlude VI

by Guede



Series: Theory [13]
Category: Hornblower (TV), King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Bickering, Biting, Blow Jobs, Class Issues, Closet Sex, Dating, F/M, FIFA World Cup 2006, Families of Choice, Getting to Know Each Other, Graduation, Hangover, Humor, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, M/M, Moving In Together, Multi, Polyamory, Roommates, Secrets, Squirrels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:55:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Relationships grow and change. If only that was as predictable as a biological life-cycle.
Relationships: Arthur Castus/Guinevere/Lancelot, Galahad (King Arthur 2004)/Mariette (Hornblower), Gawain/Tristan (King Arthur 2004)
Series: Theory [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058675
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Wanted Ad

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2006 (i.e. when gay marriage was only legal in certain U.S. states).

“Male roommate preferred,” Mariette obstinately insisted.

It definitely would’ve been a better idea to ask her to show up once the ad was drafted out. At this rate, it was going to take Galahad longer to write the stupid five-line thing than it would for him to write his thesis. “Look, I’ve only got so many lines before I have to pay extra. I’ll just tell any women that call that the space is taken already.”

“But it’s one more line.” She clamped onto his shoulder and leaned over so he could see nothing but hair. It was nice hair, and for once it was mostly down in a loose ponytail, but it was still pretty damn presumptuous. And ticklish. “Look, three words. Or no, two.”

“Only if I want to sound gay, and there’s enough of that going around. Sheesh. Next thing you know, Gawain’s going to walk in and say he and Tristan are bopping down to Massachusetts for a bit, so go rent a tux,” Galahad muttered. He batted her hair out of the way and quickly splayed his hands over the keyboard before she could mess with his work.

She didn’t even try. Actually, she dug her nails into his shoulder and elbowed him really hard in the same place where she’d accidentally kicked him last night. “They ruled out-of-state couples can’t marry unless their home state also recognizes same-sex marriage. Keep up with the news, idiot.”

“I’m an _econ_ and philosophy major, not a law school drone.” Galahad kicked back, then hastily pulled himself forward again to grab the keyboard. _Then_ he scooted away from the computer and flopped backwards to stare at the ceiling.

“He’s your fake brother!” Mariette said in an outraged tone. She was getting faster at figuring out what sounded awkward, so by the time she was halfway through, she was already squeaking in embarrassment. Now, if she only learned to stop talking sooner…

…yeah, yeah, Galahad wasn’t really the ideal authority for that. Whatever. Wow, this really was an awkward moment. And it was stretching on and on and on, and this probably was going to end up getting mentioned in some fight later. Really made him look forward to his day.

“He said you were okay with it.” Mariette’s chair had a funky wheel and sort of went off-kilter when she rolled up so her head ended up more on Galahad’s chest than his shoulder. She poked at his chin, then wrinkled her nose so much he could _hear_ it. “Are you going to shave today?”

“Later. Later. And I am okay with it, so don’t even start with your pseudo-analysis crap. Swear to God, if you like it so much, then you should’ve done psychology,” Galahad muttered.

She smacked him on the head. Galahad jerked back and nearly fell off the other side of the chair. In the process of righting himself, he had to surrender the keyboard, which Mariette pounced on and clutched to her chest. When he reached for it, she rolled back a foot. He sighed and scooted forward…and she went back another foot.

She leaned forward and stared up at him the same way a squirrel might fixate on a bag of…not for the first time, Galahad wondered what the hell was with his life. Something definitely was fucked up when he couldn’t decide whether his default metaphors or his girlfriend was weirder.

“Are. You. Okay.” Mariette drew out each word the way dumb adults did when they thought they were talking to retarded children. She gave Galahad about thirty seconds before she sat back with a smug look on her face. “Because if you are not, then Kitty’s going to be asking even more than me. So you should say so now and deal with it.”

“Kitty? How the hell does she know?” Academia was way, way too inbred. “Oh, Arthur, right?”

When Mariette shrugged, her breasts squished up from behind the keyboard. Too bad she didn’t look like she was in that kind of mood. Shame, since she’d been a lot more…not really relaxed, but willing to be persuaded ever since they’d gotten that whole first-time weirdness over and done with. “They have tea once a week. You knew that, right? I hear Arthur’s nervous, but he doesn’t want to say anything to Tristan and something else is going on with his boyfriend and girlfriend so he’s not talking to them about it, and so he’s just—”

“Whoa, whoa, TMI,” Galahad said, slapping his hands against his ears. “Arthur’s my joint advisor, not my favorite soap opera star. Don’t need to know, don’t want to know.”

“You watch soap operas?” Mariette curiously asked.

Galahad rolled his eyes. “It’s just an expression, Mariette.”

Mariette stuck her tongue out at him. “You are so…so insecure about your masculinity. I know lots of—”

“I don’t watch soap operas! I hate them because they’re empty wastes of time and every single problem on them could get solved by one guy with commonsense and a quickie lobotomy kit! It has _nothing_ to do with my goddamned masculinity—which I’m very comfortable about, by the way,” Galahad snapped. He slid his hands around to cover his eyes and dropped his arms to rest his elbows on his knees. “It’s not my fucking masculinity. It’s just Gawain being a…a…a fucking adult.”

Surprisingly enough, Mariette didn’t a) loudly ask ‘What?’ b) say Galahad was being selfish or c) coo at him and say it was okay, he could cry if he wanted to. Because that was all bullshit anyway. It wasn’t like Gawain was dying, or moving across the country without Galahad. He’d be ten minutes driving—if traffic was good—away, and probably over every other minute to fret over Tristan and cook because he firmly believed Galahad didn’t know shit about the kitchen. Despite the fact that Galahad had managed to hold a job as a short-order cook more than once.

“Asshole. He could’ve waited till our new lease ran out. I’m still going to have four months left on it,” Galahad muttered. Though that wasn’t really a big deal, either. It’d be the summer, which was an easy subletting season. Wintertime would’ve been harder. “I just hope this isn’t a continuation of their weird freak-out fight back in October.”

“I don’t think so,” Mariette said. “Then he’d be a fucking baby.”

After a moment of sheer disbelief, Galahad cracked up. He heard Mariette making a half-hearted attempt at taking back her words, but she gave up pretty fast and just glowered at him. When he kept on snickering, she started stomping on his toes.

“Ow. _Ow_. Jesus Christ, you’re nasty sometimes,” Galahad yelped, jerking back. She came after him with her heels and he pulled his feet up onto his seat. Then for some reason Mariette was laughing at him, and it was Galahad’s turn to fumble between being annoyed and pretending he’d done that on purpose.

She stopped after a while, and then it got awkward again. Galahad glanced at the computer screen. “Hell. I’m going to miss him.”

The chair squeaked as Mariette pulled herself back over. She dropped the keyboard on his lap and snuggled up to his side. “That’s why we advertise for a replacement.”

It was really, really hard not to laugh at her again. “Um. That’s not really the, uh, idea. I mean, at least now I can get somebody that doesn’t make cracks at me every time I take you out.”

“He does?” Mariette wrinkled her nose and sniffed haughtily. “And I really liked Gawain, too.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not without his annoying points,” Galahad mumbled. He stared at the screen some more. He was, in fact, all right with it, but not quite on the level where he wanted to get this goddamned ad done. He just wanted to let it sit in his head for a little longer—maybe till after he dragged Gawain out for some barcrawling later. Or after he’d made sure the squirrels wouldn’t eat Gawain in his sleep. Or after he’d talked to Tristan and made damn clear that—

A hand tentatively crawled down his arm. “I have to go run my last discussion section in ten minutes,” Mariette said. “Freshmen who don’t even know how to use natural logs to find continuously compounded interest—” rude noise “—want to make out first?”

Galahad immediately slewed around. “Brilliant idea.”

He tossed the keyboard back on the desk just as Mariette squeezed onto his lap. Hopefully that weird beeping noise didn’t mean his ad had gotten erased—but even if it had, it’d only take a couple minutes to retype it. He could get to it later.


	2. Backstage

Galahad willed his penlight to be brighter and squinted at the diagram on the page. Okay, so if he wanted to write a modeling program that included a feedback loop for—

\--“Hey!”

Shit. He nearly dropped the pen and textbook on the control board. Then he looked over the edge to see the stage manager—some redhead he vaguely remembered from a party back when he and Gawain had first arrived—glaring at him. She’d been a lot more friendly back then, but now…man. Scary. He dumped the book before she decided to charge upstairs, took a look at the stage, and cued up the lights. “How the hell do I get talked into this shit?”

“Kitty informed you that with dress rehearsals looming, she had no way to review and okay your computer lab time unless she got some help?” said somebody from behind Galahad.

This time Galahad slammed his knees into the underside of the board from jumping in surprise. He sat back down hard, hissing, and hastily flicked on the next set of cues. Then he slewed around to deliver his own death-glare to Tristan. “What are you doing here?”

“She always guilt-trips Arthur into asking me if I can help out with the make-up and special effects. I don’t have too much to do right now, and Gawain said to make sure you didn’t come home twitchy,” Tristan replied. He pulled out the chair next to Gawain, sat down, and stared up at the ceiling. He probably had owls or bats or something hidden up there.

“Twitchy? Did he actually say that?” Galahad spotted a packet of paper sticking out from the corner and picked it up. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the annotated script. He tossed it over his shoulder and poked around some more. “She already approved my computer lab time. What she’s got to approve is the models I’m going to be running during it. Which I still have to finish writing code for, and which isn’t going to get done because—”

Paper rustled. When Galahad looked up, he found Tristan calmly shoving up the floodlights and dimming the back ones, getting the sound controls with his elbow…he really was disgusting sometimes. He paused to hand Galahad the stage directions, then fiddled with the mike volume so the female lead didn’t sound so screechy.

“Sorry, man. She’s naturally like that. Which sucks for her, because aside from the voice, she’s actually the best one,” Galahad muttered. He took the packet, flipped till he thought he had the right scene, and pulled up the programming manual.

“There’s been worse. The first year I was here, Kitty decided her theater majors would do a musical as their final.” Tristan actually grimaced, so that show must’ve been pretty damn bad. “Why can’t you finish coding on time?”

Galahad started to answer that one, then stopped himself. God, he was tired. He also didn’t normally care much for diplomacy, but this was slightly different. “I probably will, but it’s just that turning a philosophical hypothesis into an economic computer model’s not exactly easy. I just have all this other shit to do, like making sure a hundred-something philosophy undergrads get their grades entered into the system properly.”

Downstairs, somebody shrieked, then stomped off the stage. When Galahad checked, he found that yep, it was the prima donna again. Honestly, if she hadn’t figured out by now that Kitty didn’t need a corset for backbone, then she damn well deserved to flunk the course. Everyone else was just eyerolling and working around it—by now, even the understudy didn’t miss a beat as she slid into place.

“You’re done with classes, aren’t you?” Tristan abruptly said.

“I was done when I showed up, practically. I finished a semester early, but since I was hanging around for Gawain anyway, I figured I’d get some of the grad classes out of the way. Avalon transferred them all, thank God.” If Galahad had had to actually take classes on top of moving in and dealing with Tristan and Gawain and the circus that was Arthur’s private life, he might’ve killed someone.

Actually, it was kind of hard to remember why he’d disliked Tristan so much. He had—he wasn’t rewriting his memory or anything—but nowadays, Tristan was just always around. Annoying as hell, but in the way that a drippy faucet was, and not in the way that got you a manslaughter conviction.

“You’re done too, aren’t you?” Galahad asked. “A couple of weeks and you’re out of here.”

He didn’t get an answer right away. That was par for the course where Tristan was concerned, so Galahad let it go. Plus there was a complicated light direction coming up, and Galahad needed both hands to cover it.

But Tristan did usually respond sooner or later, so the next time they got a short break, Galahad spun around to look at him. “I can’t picture you in that robe and cap.”

“You will. Arthur insists.” Tristan looked about as enthusiastic as if someone had told him that they’d cut down all the trees on campus and he had to always enter through a door. It wasn’t totally because of the wardrobe issue.

Galahad poked at the control board. “Is it…kind of weird?”

“Weirder than having to suddenly move overseas because there’s a body in your kitchen?” Tristan asked. His deadpan was so perfect that Galahad couldn’t help feeling a little bit of jealousy. It was a good thing the man wasn’t interested in poker, or else Galahad never would be able to find a Texas Hold’em game in town.

There wasn’t really a great answer to that kind of question, so Galahad assumed it was rhetorical. He flicked up the sidelights and watched them beam up through the dry ice fog that was slowly curling onto the stage. “How is Arthur? He seems tense lately, and not like finals tense. Also haven’t seen him get hauled into his office recently by either of them.”

“They’re all still having sex, if that’s what you’re asking.” A tiny smile flashed over Tristan’s face as Galahad made gagging motions. Then he sobered up and stared out and down onto the stage. “He’s busy. He…he’s gotten a third of what he was supposed to do during his sabbatical year already done.”

“That’s not a good thing?” Galahad asked. He idly flipped the pages of his programming manual. Mariette had had to cancel their date later, so maybe he’d just hole up in the g-brary and get some kind of draft banged out.

Tristan shrugged. Nonchalant as that was, he was worried enough to look worried. “There are other…problems bothering him. Non-collegial ones. But I don’t know much. I think he’s trying to keep me out of it. And he’s trying to clear out his college workload just in case.”

“So what, you’re going to be running around all summer helping out?” Galahad raised his eyebrows and stared back at Tristan. “I’m asking so I know if I’ve got to deal with _twitchy_ Gawain. You know, he might seem really okay with the moving-in-together deal, but he’s…he is happy about it. Don’t go freaking out, because he is. He’s just also…getting twitchy.”

“I know.” Despite the warning, Tristan went and chewed briefly on his lip. But he got hold of himself after a moment and absently adjusted the sound as a scene change came on below. “Not unless Arthur asks. And I don’t think he’s going to,” he finally said in a quiet voice. “I’m graduating. He’s taking that as a kind of signal.”

Which seemed perfectly normal to Galahad. He couldn’t draw any comparisons between them and his parents, but he could do it a little with how Grandma Yvie had gone from ordering him and Gawain around to asking and then to advising. She’d been pretty cranky about it at points, but it’d happened just about when Galahad thought it should have. “Well, you’re way over the age limit for having a legal guardian.”

Tristan shot Galahad a look that was just shy of being outright irritated.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re close to him, it’s not because you’re being forced into it. But hey, he’s got his things to do and you’ve got yours. It happens.” Galahad kicked at the floor a little bit.

“He has a habit of confusing maturation with isolation,” Tristan said.

For a moment, Galahad was pretty stunned. Usually he got this kind of info secondhand through Gawain. Then he shrugged and rolled with it; after a year of putting up with them and sometimes being the one to shove them into the same room together so they could work things out, he figured he deserved a little more. “Well, you don’t, do you? So make sure you’ve got his GPS coordinates at all times.”

Tristan looked at Galahad again, then turned away. He glanced down to turn up the volume on one of the softer-spoken actors and the corners of his mouth tugged upward. A very soft, short chuckle came out. “Are you coming to the graduation ceremony?”

“Somebody’s gotta make sure Gawain takes a decent picture. I _really_ want to see you in that stupid cap,” Galahad grinned.

“Hey!” the stage manager snapped.

Both Tristan and Galahad rolled their eyes; Galahad leaned over and waved her off. “I got it, I got it. Sheesh.”

“Thanks,” Tristan said.

When Galahad leaned back, the other man was gone. A big dream sequence with all sorts of special effects was up next, so that made sense, but Galahad still was a little piqued. Then he chalked it up to normal-Tristan weirdness and got on with the lights. “You’re welcome, but don’t fuck it up,” he muttered.


	3. Magna Cum Laude and Squirrels

Mariette walked into the room and promptly hit the Wall, which had gotten shoved out of its usual central position in favor of more space. She caught the top of the couch, righted herself, and looked up with a sour expression on her face. It only took a second for that to dissolve in helpless hilarity. “Mon Dieu…” she started and then trailed off, giggling.

Tristan continued to stare at the ceiling. He had his arms out, but the only way Galahad knew that was because he’d flopped over the extra sleeve fabric to let his hands poke into the air. Otherwise he just looked like a big, poufy green…pouf.

Okay, Galahad’s descriptive skills were failing him. He didn’t think that was his fault, given the provocation at hand. “Like I said on the phone, they screwed up his robe and it’s…obviously…too…big…”

“Stop. Laughing,” Gawain hissed. He elbowed Galahad in the side, then dodged Galahad’s kick without ever slowing in his frantic pinning. By now he’d gotten half of the bottom hem handled and was working his way around to Tristan’s other side.

Galahad coughed a couple times and had to bite his lip, but he managed not to snicker. Anyway, Mariette was doing plenty of that for him. “Man, we should just whack off the extra six inches, then pin. Or else he’s gonna have rings of stitching at knee-level and this shit already looks cheap enough.”

Gawain started to object, but stopped and stared at the half-pinned robe. First his expression was dumbstruck, then self-criticizing and finally just pissed off. “Where are the scissors?”

“I’ll get them. You can keep pinning, but just use them to mark out where we want to cut—”

“I _know_. I’m the one that always did the sewing, you know,” Gawain snapped.

Whoa, was he in a bad mood, and he wasn’t even the one who was on the verge of becoming the traditional commencement ceremony joke. 

As he got up, Galahad let out a low whistle. He had to scramble out of the way to avoid Gawain’s swipe at him, but after he’d gotten two feet away, he was home free. Gawain went back to his mad pinning while Galahad hopped over the Wall to land in front of Mariette. “Hey. So—”

She held up the kind of sewing kit he’d thought had gone extinct with the fifties. When she leaned over to peck him on the side of the mouth, she nearly banged his ear with the kit. “I didn’t know you knew anything about fixing clothes.”

“Well, I try to know as little as possible and find someone else that knows better.” Galahad grinned at her indignation and bent around to reach the set of drawers behind her. He rummaged around till he came up with the scissors. And since she smelled nice and she happened to be wearing a sleeveless blouse, nuzzled the side of her arm.

Mariette squealed and yanked at his hair, then made her getaway to the side. “Pervert. Gawain, where would you like me to start?”

“Oh, um…here. Then I can start on the sleeves—Galahad?”

“Scissors,” Galahad replied, handing those over. Pervert, his ass. She’d been there too when they’d been making out on the floor, and on the Wall’s saggy cushions, and against the wall…“Oh, hey, Arthur.”

“Morning, Galahad. I just came by to see if everything was…all right.” From where he was standing in the doorway, Arthur couldn’t see much of what was going on. What he could see had him trying not to raise his eyebrows and pursing his lips in an obvious effort to keep a straight face. “Tristan?”

Galahad glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Tristan make some gesture with his arm. “It starts at eleven. I’ll be on the left side. Don’t sit by the east door,” Tristan called back. “Make sure you’re not carrying any food. The lunch reception’s in the courtyard behind the labs.”

This time, Arthur couldn’t keep himself from making the wary-amused parental face. “Should I be prepared to apologize to Merlin later?”

“Why? Did you do anything to him?” Tristan tipped his head down long enough to shoot Arthur a bland look.

“The reception’s where?” Gawain scooted back and put his arms behind himself to prop himself up. He stared quizzically up at Tristan. “Isn’t that where you guys do your outdoor studies on decomposition of buried organic matter?”

Okay, avoid tree, don’t carry food, don’t eat lunch—actually, if Galahad got a moment off to make the call, he could probably have a pizza waiting for them outside of the labs. Or maybe he and Mariette would just skip the luncheon and hit the new Italian sandwich place. Receptions were boring anyway, and he wasn’t about to suffer through one that didn’t mention him anywhere.

“We dug all those up and cleaned up the courtyard,” Tristan said. 

That was enough for Gawain, but Mariette was looking a bit ill. She glanced over and Galahad caught her eye, then mouthed ‘skip it?’ At first her face scrunched up and she looked like she was going to rip into him again, but then she looked at Tristan again. Her face cleared up and she vigorously nodded to Galahad.

“Well, I suppose I’ll trust in your sense of sanitation,” Arthur dryly commented. He stepped back out of the door and caught sight of someone he knew, waving for them to stop. Then he poked his head back in. “I’ll see you at the ceremony.”

His voice had a funny catch in it that they all pretended to ignore, though Tristan tipped his head down again to stare at Arthur. After a short, oddly brusque nod, Arthur walked off, calling to Dieckmann; Tristan went back to watching the ceiling age. He probably was taking detailed mental notes in case he ever had a murder case in a GSI study room.

A thought occurred to Galahad. “Hey, did you check the hat?”

“Mortarboard,” Mariette absently corrected. She tossed the strip of cloth she’d just cut off onto the sofa and started folding up the new hem.

“Whatever. Is it okay, or did they send over some pointy thing?” Galahad said.

Tristan quietly snorted to himself. “It’s fine. Try it on if you like. Might help you keep some IQ points from getting bleached out of your head.”

“Hey—I’m not the only one that gets sun-bleached in the summer! Hell, Gawain’s blonder than I am, so why doesn’t he ever get this shit?” Sheesh. Any more of that and Galahad was going to stitch up a slit in the back so Tristan would end up mooning the whole assembly.

On second thought, that was no good. He wasn’t sure if Gawain would drool himself into dehydration or implode from sympathetic embarrassment. Of course, the second one wasn’t really necessary since even that probably wouldn’t embarrass Tristan, but just try telling Gawain that.

“Because he looks smart,” Mariette said.

Galahad made a face at her. “And I don’t?”

The room was eerily quiet. After a moment, Galahad snarled at them all and irritably plopped back on the floor to help her out with the hem. “I hate you people.”

“Don’t forget to show up at Tristan’s sometime after you skip out. There’ll be beer,” Gawain muttered. He slid a knowing look at Galahad.

“Now I really hate you.” Galahad cursed as he poked himself with the needle. “It better be decent booze—if you got Miller Light again, I’m drowning you in it.”

* * *

“It’s commencement, not a graduation party! We don’t need to bring a present!” Piles and piles of phone trace logs to go through, plus a full weekend looming, and what did Guinevere do? Come into Lancelot’s office, interrupt his work, and spend a good fifteen minutes listing do’s and don’t for Tristan’s graduation. For Christ’s sake, he could handle a college commencement ceremony—did she think he was brain-dead?

Of course she did. “Where’s your tie?” Guin demanded, poking at the air towards him. It still seemed oddly reluctant to hit him, which was what she probably was willing it to do.

“Hanging on the wall with my coat. I didn’t feel like wrestling with the damn thing today—I’ll put it on before we go, all right? Heaven forbid I show up tie-less to an event where the guests of honor all look like shiny balloons,” Lancelot grumbled. He flipped through another thick packet of logs, squinting till he finally found the crucial entry. Then he went to highlight it, only to find that the bloody pen had gone dry on him.

“Don’t be late. Remember we have to take the traffic into account.” Guin stood there and talked and angled her lovely curving body, completely oblivious to how much of a prat she sounded. They’d been living in New York City for _years_ now.

Lancelot leaned back and capped the highlighter. He looked at it, then looked at Guinevere’s head. She was going on so strong right now that she probably wouldn’t notice if it came straight for her—

“You are not pitching that at me,” she suddenly snapped, startling Lancelot. Throwing her hands up into the air, Guinevere heaved a great sigh and walked out. “Oh, grow up. Tossing pens is so infantile.”

The highlighter made a nice loud ringing sound when it hit the trashcan. It was a perfect shot from twenty feet away and briefly made Lancelot happy, but he soon sank back into his bad mood. Smuggling cases always threw up unexpected complications, but this diamond-smuggling case was taking the cake by far. It should’ve been over back in the winter, but here it still was on his desk, looking to go on for the whole year.

He sighed and pulled open the middle desk drawer to look for another highlighter. Well, normally smugglers were educated by experience and guided by street-level profiteering, but this time, they had a highly-trained former covert ops man working with them. Too bad MI-6 refused to handle the damn problem. Of course, Pellew never would have asked them to, and Lancelot probably would have been damned annoyed at the least to have them cutting his case short, but right now he could see the virtues of assassination.

He wondered if Arthur had anything to do—no, that was a fruitless train of thought. Arthur had made it quite clear that while Clayton had been something of a friend, he wouldn’t get in the way of Interpol’s investigation. Anyway, he had more trust and faith in the judicial system than even Guin or Pellew. It was just a combination of luck and skill on Clayton’s part, and sooner or later Lancelot would get luckier; he already knew he was more skilled.

“Take that, Dad,” Lancelot muttered.

Nearly a month later and that still bothered him. It was bad enough that he’d gone bar-crawling and ended up crying into Arthur’s shoulder on a Central Park bench, but what made it drag on spectacularly was how no one talked about it. Ask him how he was, blah blah blah, but nothing about what he’d done that day. Guinevere hadn’t teased him about it once and Arthur…Arthur tended to forget about taking off the kid gloves when things were normal. Now it was like he was wearing pillows on his hands.

God. One of these days Lancelot was just going to snap and deck the man.

But for now, he was going to try and finish working through some of these logs so he could go to Arthur’s not-really-adopted-son’s graduation and celebratory luncheon. And smile and make chit-chat and keep the beneath-the-table groping to a minimum while mentally calling down all kinds of hell on the man who invented neckties. Christ, he did love the aggravating bastard.

“Lancelot?” Isolde stood in the doorway with another armful of files. She noticed the way he looked at them and hastily shook her head. “No, no, these are mine. But Pellew wanted me to pass on a message: MI-6 appears to have increased activity in the area. Nothing too serious for now, so don’t plan around it, but keep an eye out.”

Well, all right and those goddamned disrespectful sons of bitches…but that didn’t mean anything in particular to Lancelot. Unless he wanted to make one of two nasty jumps to conclusion. “Is he still around?”

“No, he went charging out of here. He did want me to tell Guinevere, too,” Isolde replied.

“Oh, that’s all right. Guin and I are taking a lunch break in another twenty minutes and I’ll tell her then.” Lancelot waved off Isolde’s thanks and attacked the phone logs with new gusto. He was rolling his eyes at himself, but at least he was going to get a hell of a lot of work done. Nothing for that like an impending chance to pry more past history out of Arthur.

* * *

Guinevere turned down a side-street. She didn’t like taking this way because of how it doubled back on itself—redundant—but at this time of day, it’d be far quicker than the straight route. “So are you saying you think it’s for Clayton or for Arthur?”

“Maybe both? I don’t know—I’m sorry, Guin, but I’m not that fluent in deciphering the many nuances of Pellew’s this-is-urgent-but-not-really messages,” Lancelot snarled. Mostly at his tie, which was busily kicking his fingers’ arses again. “What do you think?”

“I think…” Arthur has been working on something. He was up late, and not always doing university work or research, and lately he and she have had some slightly off-kilter conversations about how he was or wasn’t quite managing to let Tristan go that final few inches into adulthood. “I think Tristan got lucky, with all the rain we’ve had lately. He’s going to have a beautiful ceremony.”

Sometimes Lancelot picked up the undertones far faster than Guinevere expected. He glanced over, hands stilled in turns of silk. “When is Arthur officially on sabbatical?”

“Next Monday. Four days from now.”

“How much alcohol is at home? Can we get him drunk enough to make him sleep through whatever timeline he’s got going?” Lancelot asked. He belatedly added a mock-innocent look at the end. “In celebration of Tristan, obviously.”

Guinevere looked at him. He’d finally gotten his tie done, but the ends were flapped all over the place. And his hair was in an awful state.

“Please don’t pull out a gigantic bottle of hair-gel from your purse, Guin. That’d just be entirely too sitcom for you. And rather scarily obsessive-compulsive.” Lancelot sat up just enough to tug at his coat so it sat properly on his shoulders. He brushed down his shirt, preening even though he knew he didn’t have an appreciative audience. “I was joking. Even Arthur’s not going to simply disappear on the first day he doesn’t have to go into his office. He knows we’d find him, kill him, and then revive him just to yell at him.”

True enough, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were worrying over nothing. After taking the next turn, Guinevere pulled up her purse and unzipped it. A second later, she pulled out a little jar, which she handed to a suddenly incredulous Lancelot. “Your hair is frizzing. You might look attractively tousled now, but in about fifteen minutes you’ll look like those clever fuzzy things from Star Trek.”

“What—the Tribbles? And ‘attractively tousled’? A compliment on appearances alone from you never comes without strings,” Lancelot said, looking suspicious. However, that didn’t stop him from promptly pulling down the shade-guard so he could peer at himself in its mirror. He unscrewed the pomade jar after only twenty-five seconds.

“I’d rather find this out for myself, but I’ve got the better contacts with MI-6, so I’ll have to be the one staying late tonight to find out why they’re in town. Anyway, Arthur still seems to be giving you extra slack. So you’re it.” Perhaps Arthur wasn’t going to start right away, but if he was working on something, then he’d be thinking hardest on it today during Tristan’s graduation. It was the most opportune time Guinevere could see for reminding him that he had _other_ obligations now that weren’t going away.

Lancelot stayed silent for several minutes while a series of amusing, incredibly complex expressions worked their way over his face. He didn’t even touch his hair, but instead finally turned to stare hard at Guinevere. “Are you—pimping me out? And trying to use my father’s death as leverage on Arthur’s soft side? Guin, this is exactly what he doesn’t need! This kind of gaming is what he’s ended up coming to _expect_ from the world, even if he can’t help believing that it’ll _eventually_ change for the better. This is what makes him think about going back!”

“Well, I don’t know how else to make him pay attention! At least it’s a language he doesn’t ignore!” Guinevere snapped. Then she cursed and quickly slammed on the brakes, barely avoiding a cruise through a red light. A cacophony of honking and obscene shouts filled the air around the car.

This being New York, that was all reflex. The yells soon died down, giving Lancelot a chance to sourly remark, “More like at least it’s a language that’s easier for you to speak. Sex won’t hold Arthur—you’d remember that if you started thinking. You’ve got to dig deeper than that.”

Guinevere slowly wrapped her fingers around the wheel and twisted them till the leather covering creaked. It wasn’t a very therapeutic way to vent her frustration and worry, despite her best tries at pretending she was wringing Lancelot’s neck. She still had to admit he was right, and even without all the rest of the context, that by itself was galling.

“So what do you suggest?” she finally asked.

“I’m working on it.” Lancelot turned around and moodily stared through the windshield. “It _would_ be easier if sex did the trick.”

In spite of herself, Guinevere snickered a little. “Like with you?”

He shot her an irritated look, then held the pomade jar under his nose, moving it back and forth like a wineglass while he took ostentatious sniffs. “Hmmm…expensive. Did you say you didn’t want this back? Why, thank you, Guin.”

“If you know sex doesn’t work on Arthur, then you should damn well know holding my cosmetics hostage doesn’t work on me,” she snorted. “Just fix your hair. If nothing else, we are not going to be _embarrassing_.”

“Pride before everything. I—you know, I think I love you for that,” Lancelot replied, grinning. He didn’t look like he was going to explain himself.

And they were almost there, so Guinevere didn’t have time to query him. She sighed and girded herself up for all the ridiculous social niceties they’d have to handle in the next hour or so. Actually, that was an idea. Maybe they could convince Arthur it was impolite to trick them.

Yes, they were stretching things at this point. But neither of them could help it. They loved him too much.

* * *

Arthur turned down between the next pair of bookshelves, then paused. After gathering himself, he calmly walked over, put back his book, and nodded to Clayton. He pretended to be scanning the book spines, working closer till they were standing side-by-side.

They were in the literary writing section, looking at a shelf full of literary criticism on film noir and the pulp fiction overlap with the detective story. Fitting.

“You’re going to make me answer for invading your space like this. You can skip the speech—I’ve got it by heart,” Clayton said, but not snappishly or bitterly. Instead he simply sounded very tired, each word issuing out of him like a weak trail of smoke. He smelled very strongly of cigarettes, and when he put his right hand up on the shelf, his fingertips were a dull, sickly yellow. “I’m not here to call on any nostalgic memories or ask you for anything. I just wanted to mention something—maybe your ward’s already told you, but I understand he’s receiving his degree today and he might have been too preoccupied.”

Ice crept up around Arthur’s heart. He was rather amazed at how steady and regular his breathing remained. “Please don’t talk about Tristan.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. He’s a good—he’s grown up well. Never oversteps himself so no one pays much attention to him, though they’re aware he’s around. Not because of his parentage, Arthur, so you can stop cringing. He’s made a space for himself all on his own.” Clayton tipped out a very large book and tilted it to look at the cover just as a few students passed by the other end of the stacks. The book briefly masked his face, both from them and from Arthur.

If that…if that was true, then Arthur would have to mention to Tristan to keep an even lower profile. But not today—then again, perhaps it would take care of itself. A large part of it had been due to Arthur’s requests, and those would soon be diminishing in number.

“MI-6 is in town. They finally decided to put me out of my misery, I suppose. Just me—there’ll be plenty of others for Interpol to catch,” Clayton murmured. He glanced at Arthur again. It was a short but level look, expecting little and turning a bit surprised at what it found. But that only lasted a second before his expression turned to wry understanding. “That’s all.”

And he turned and slowly walked away while Arthur remained where he was, staring at books and books of knowledge that were suddenly a little blurry. He blinked once and his vision sharpened, but something had changed. Usually he loved books: loved their heft, their promise of knowledge. Right now they seemed like rows and rows of empty shells.

Arthur followed after counting to fifty, with some random book tucked beneath his arm. He made a brief inquiry at the front desk, but even Dagonet couldn’t remember seeing Clayton come or go.

He walked slowly across campus and was halfway back to his office before he remembered he needed to head the opposite way in order to make it to Tristan’s matriculation ceremony. So Arthur turned around, but then he stopped and just looked out over the lawn. It was a lovely, breezy day with just enough sun to warm the skin, and despite finals, a good many students were out lounging on the grass or playing with Frisbees.

It hadn’t been a request for aid, Arthur decided. Clayton looked too tired, sounded too far gone…he was welcoming the end of it. He’d been welcoming it ever since he’d gotten involved with the smuggling ring, which was too small-scale to really be useful for intelligence purposes and too dirty to really sit well with his conscience. That had been written in his face.

The ivy was in full green again—a bit surprising, since it seemed like only yesterday that the vines were still bare brown nets thrown over the brooding Victorian-style buildings. When the breeze freshened, Arthur could smell flowers, damp earth…a trace of pot, which almost made him smile.

It was an easy solution to the worries that had been troubling Arthur since Clayton’s reappearance. Clayton would finally have his rest. MI-6 wouldn’t bother with rehabilitation and would opt for a straightforward elimination. Lancelot and Guinevere would be angry, as they’d been counting on Clayton as a possible target for an inside informer, but they’d still be able to make their case. And Arthur would no longer be concerned that details of that part of his old life would ever get out into the open.

But this was like—this _was_ watching a suicide in progress, and for no particularly worthy reason that Arthur could see. It was as if Clayton had remembered the old dictates about death before dishonor and laying down one’s life for one’s country, but only the part about death and not the part about rationale or sacrifice. Something should be accomplished in exchange for loss of life, otherwise…it was more like murder.

“Hi, Professor Pendragon!”

Arthur startled up and stared wildly about before he spotted the smiling, waving girls. He took a deep breath and smiled back, absently returning their way. Then he checked his watch. He was going to be late if he didn’t hurry up.

* * *

“Um. Hey.” Gawain waited for Lancelot and Guinevere to turn around before he pointed. “I think we’re all over there. At least, I spotted Arthur’s name on one of the placeholders for that table.”

Lancelot glanced over, then shrugged and started moving towards said table. “Well, if we’re not, I think we’re early enough so that no one’s going to notice a few swapped cards.”

“You’re so… _provincial_ sometimes, I swear,” Guinevere muttered, stalking after him.

Galahad wandered up beside Gawain, still fiddling with the digital camera he’d borrowed. He flicked his eyes towards Guinevere. “Pissed off she didn’t think of it first?”

He’d talked pretty low, but Lancelot still stifled a snicker, while Guinevere’s shoulders got a little stiff. Wincing, Gawain jabbed his elbow hard into Galahad’s ribs, then dragged him along after the other two.

“Ow!” Galahad yelped, and loudly enough for the people gathering in the room to all turn to stare. Including that Dr. Fay that Tristan was so…well, he liked her and thought she was the best professor in the forensics department, but something to do with her amused him a hell of a lot.

Then again, maybe Gawain knew that was. He happened to look towards Guinevere and caught her giving Dr. Fay the kind of narrow-eyed cat-stare that usually led to embarrassing hair-pulling and screeching if enough alcohol was around. Except that was Arthur’s S. O., and she usually seemed more professional than that; she’d quietly phone some assassin instead.

Dr. Fay had already pivoted to smile slowly at Arthur, who’d just walked in. He returned her smile with a nod and kept on walking, completely missing her almost-call to him. She looked a bit annoyed. Guinevere looked smug. Lancelot was going to break something if he kept fake-coughing like that.

“I thought I was going to be late,” Arthur said, staring around. He spoke oddly—he clipped his words, like he was nervous. Okay, it was Tristan’s graduation, but…

Gawain decided he’d better take the camera from Galahad for right now. Judging from the way Lancelot and Guinevere’s faces changed, the last thing they needed was somebody accidentally filming this bit for posterity. Maybe it’d be funny in ten years…or maybe it’d be a hell of a fight-trigger, and Gawain wanted today to be _happy_ , damn it. He didn’t care how clichéd that sounded.

“No, you’re okay. I guess you missed the message—they pushed back the start fifteen minutes because something was up with the audio equipment and they needed to go grab replacements. See, everyone’s coming in now,” Galahad said, jerking his chin towards the doors. He was having one of his rare fits of semi-diplomacy, and thank God for it. “Tristan’s out in the other hall fiddling with the wires if you’re looking for him. Just look for the one guy that doesn’t look like a big green marshmallow.”

“Galahad!” Mariette gasped, outraged. She came up long enough to smack him and hand Arthur her program before she went off for more programs for the rest of them.

Galahad looked equally offended. “What? What? Hey, you were giggling earlier, too—what is the deal, anyway? I always thought gowns were only for undergrads.”

“Now, yes, but Avalon’s a bit old-fashioned in this respect. This is how it was done when the school was founded,” Arthur explained. He was amused, and consequently had relaxed somewhat, but he still seemed off-kilter. He managed to maneuver between Gawain to get the one seat against the wall.

The defensive implications of that weren’t lost on either Lancelot or Guinevere, but just then someone said the ceremony was going to start and they didn’t have time to launch in on Arthur. Instead they just shot a bunch of looks at each other. After the first two, Gawain stopped trying to read them for the sake of his sanity. There were scary libraries full of information in those glances, and when two people knew each other well enough for that kind of thing to work, then it was a really, really good idea to stay out of the way.

The chair of the department gave a short introductory speech, then called out names as the twelve matriculating students came in through a side-door. Tristan was third, and he sent a faint smile towards the table, though he kept his eyes straight ahead. Good idea, because apparently the temporary stage hadn’t been assembled quite right and the second-to-last girl stumbled on the steps, falling hard against the wall. Something let out a metallic clatter and then there was an odd _whoosh_ sound.

Red-faced, the girl shoved off the wall…only to be snatched back? She squealed and scrambled for her robe as it was pulled up to her knees by some unseen force.

“It’s just an A/C vent,” Lancelot said, tone clipped and urgent in the kind of way an ambulance dispatcher might be.

Gawain glanced over just in time to see Arthur sitting back down, his face a study in how to wipe off a betraying expression. Then he looked back at the stage, where several other students were helping the girl get her robe free of the vent trying to suck it in. Tristan stepped around her, glanced down, and then kicked hard. The girl suddenly stumbled back, then righted herself and the procession continued.

It was a lot like every other formal university Gawain had ever attended: speech, bad jokes, speech. But then they were presenting the diplomas and the speaker had just called out Tristan’s name.

“—idiot!” The sharp pain in Gawain’s side turned out to be Galahad’s elbow. Galahad shoved himself closer and made a grab at Gawain’s hands. “Camera! You’re gonna miss the whole thing!”

Oh. Oh, right. Gawain hastily lifted the camera and had it on just as Tristan was shaking hands with the department chair. He focused. He did something to fix the light/dark contrast. He pressed a lot of buttons without really knowing what the hell he was doing, and somehow nothing bad happened. Then Tristan was walking off the stage and Gawain became aware of Galahad muttering about prematurely proud papas and Mariette scolding him.

“I wish his mother was here,” Arthur suddenly said in a quiet voice. He looked on as two more degrees were presented, but Gawain doubted he was really watching. Then he glanced at his hands and smiled. “I suppose I’ll have to be happy enough to fill her place.”

“You’ve been doing that for years. Stop being so damn humble and take credit for once.” The voice was so low Gawain couldn’t tell whether it’d come from Lancelot or Guinevere.

He had a feeling Arthur could, though, but that wasn’t exactly Gawain’s territory so he kept his mind the hell away from any possible speculations on that. He stared at Tristan instead. The last-minute tailoring job had made him look…well, better than the others, but he still resembled a billowing green ruffle and the cap looked like it was eating his head. And despite all of that, he was really, really hot.

Tristan had been calmly scanning the room and his eyes finally ran across Gawain’s. They held Gawain’s gaze for a long moment during which the temperature rapidly climbed, then moved on. Gawain winced and shifted so more of his lap was under the tablecloth.

Galahad took a break from his bickering with Mariette to sigh. “Jesus. I’m starting to see the bright side of you moving out.”

“…thank you for coming—” said the speaker up at the podium. A very old man with watery, wandering pale blue eyes; Gawain vaguely remembered Tristan mentioning that he was the oldest faculty member in the forensics department, but otherwise didn’t have much else going for him. Everyone started to get up, but the man kept talking. And talking. And it wasn’t going to end any time soon.

“I’m also glad that Tristan’s kind of psycho when it comes to squirrels. God, I want to get out of here,” Galahad muttered.

Arthur stiffened, then turned around. “Galahad—”

Someone screamed: Dr. Fay. She’d leaped up on her chair and, still yelling her head off, pointed at the floor. Everyone was turning and staring, but—

“There! That fucking little furball ripped my _hose_!” Dr. Fay screeched.

“Oh, shit!” Mark Kernyw, Tristan’s advisor, suddenly jumped out of his seat, nearly tripping himself. He was also staring at the floor. “There’s more than one!”

The squirrel he was looking at stopped and angrily chittered, then took off as someone threw a glassful of water at it. This was not exactly effective, and from there it turned into a total nuthouse.

Somehow Gawain ended up in one of the side corridors, banging at a heating pipe in an effort to get at chitterings that probably weren’t even coming from there.

“It’s not in there—those are just echoes,” someone said, coming up from behind. Tristan. Grinning. He’d lost his mortarboard and his robe had been yanked up and tossed over one arm so people could see he preferred to go with khakis beneath. “They’ve all pretty been dumped outside, and I think Arthur’s prying that one out right now.”

“Where’s your diploma?” Gawain asked, frowning. A fine sheen of sweat covered Tristan’s forehead, but that was normal. The odd, not-quite exhilarated look in Tristan’s eyes definitely wasn’t. 

Tristan shrugged, effortlessly graceful but still with that strange edge. “With Arthur. Where’s the camera?”

“With Galahad.” Gawain listened for a second, then decided everyone was too far off to bother worrying about. He walked forward till he and Tristan were about six inches apart. “Hey…”

Fingers rose and lightly skated over the backs of Gawain’s hands. Then Tristan turned and went around Gawain. Then he turned again, fast, while Gawain was still trying to follow so he was between Gawain and the wall. “I just graduated. I’m starting my job in a month. A week after you—I—we move into our apartment. I’ll be…legally employed. I think they call it a ‘stable home situation.’”

He was…babbling, Gawain realized to his shock. Tristan was babbling, and so nervous his eyes were shining with it, and before Gawain knew what he was doing, he had Tristan by the arms and was pulling him in, leaning their foreheads together. “Tristan. It’s okay. Whatever you want, it’s okay. Well, except if you suddenly run off to—to Uzbekistan or something, because then I think I should get an explanation, but…I mean, I’ll listen and if it’s a good reason, I’ll…fuck. I love you.”

He yanked Tristan in and then they were clawing at each other like rabid weasels. Their mouths were taking a damn good stab at trying to merge, though a sudden jolt slid them askew. Tristan went with it, working down around Gawain’s beard to mouth softly at Gawain’s neck while his hands ripped at Gawain’s fly. For his part, Gawain fucking _hated_ the robe now. He was pressing so closely to Tristan he could feel everything, but he just kept grabbing and grabbing at the cloth and he never seemed to come to an end.

Now Tristan’s hand was inside Gawain’s jeans and doing wonderful things that made Gawain alternately slump and redouble his efforts to even things up. The thought vaguely passed through his mind that this was a public hallway, so he probably should hide. Somehow this translated into dropping onto his knees. It made Tristan hiss and catch his lip between his teeth, so it couldn’t be that wrong.

The robe, however, was still in the fucking way. And it wouldn’t rip either, which left Gawain growling and pushing till finally, _finally_ he had it up and Tristan’s pants down and a warm, happily twitching cock in his mouth. Tristan stumbled backwards and Gawain followed. A little too closely, because Tristan hit the wall a second later and the impact had Gawain’s lips being scratched by rough, wavy hair. Some of it also tickled his nose and he instinctively snorted; Tristan’s hands shot down to clamp on his shoulder. He blew out through his nose again, more deliberately, and the first trace of saltiness filled the back of his mouth.

Jesus. Gawain’s prick went from interested to monofocused in no time at all. He leaned forward, vaguely remembering something about Tristan and cock in his mouth and—oddly enough, getting his hand down his own jeans did something to his brain to make it shape up. Right. He was in the middle of blowing Tristan’s mind, and Tristan was starting to make those little funny noises, raspy and back-of-the-throat, and those just got under Gawain’s skin like little else did. Warmed him up but made him restless, too. So he got on with things.

A couple minutes later, Tristan got on with it, then went sliding down the wall. Gawain made a messy one-handed not-really-a-catch, since he was pretty near mindless himself. He ground himself up against Tristan’s leg a few times, then barely remembered to pull away to keep Tristan’s pants clean.

“That was the robe,” Tristan muttered, laughter bubbling up in his voice. He let his arm rest limply over Gawain’s shoulder, eyes closing. “I—”

“It’ll be okay. You’ll do great. And man, I hope you do a better job of this than me when I graduate,” Gawain told him, kissing his jaw.

Tristan hesitated, then put up his hands and cradled Gawain’s face and softly kissed him. And kissed him. And—

“I signed up to do the camera work, not guard a fucking hallway. ‘wain, that robe billows a lot, but it doesn’t cover _that_ much.” Galahad’s voice whined around the corner. A second later, his head popped around. He looked faintly green and annoyed and beneath that, relieved. “Come on. Mariette can only distract Arthur for so long, and practically everyone else has already gone to lunch. Man, I’m _so_ not gonna miss accidentally walking in on you two.”

“Damn. Lunch.” Gawain lightly licked at the edge of Tristan’s jaw.

After leaning into it, Tristan reached around behind himself. Sound of a zipper, and then he pulled the robe off and wadded it up. He smiled as Gawain desperately worked at straightening their clothing. “I graduated.”

“Mmm. How many courses are there?”

“We can skip after the entrée,” Tristan murmured.

* * *

Arthur bit down where Lancelot’s neck swept into his shoulder, just above the loosened collar. Then he pulled back enough to watch the skin there slowly flush red. Lancelot’s fingers spasmed, then dug hard into Arthur’s shoulder. The other man came almost soundlessly, only a harsh gasp getting away from him. He collapsed against Arthur instead of against the wall, hanging by his arms so Arthur could feel how drenched with sweat they’d gotten.

Then he pulled back and stared at Arthur like he was thinking of calling for a psychiatric evaluation. “Normally I wouldn’t object to skipping formalities in favor of this—especially since Tristan was out of there as soon as the salad was gone—but that was _not_ about making you feel good. What’s wrong?”

“Why did Guinevere go back to work?” Arthur asked. He slipped his hands out of Lancelot’s trousers and up to curve around Lancelot’s waist, fingering the soft skin.

It was a moment before Lancelot answered. He busied himself with his rumpled suit while he did. “Reports of increased British intelligence presence. Pellew’s concerned it might have something to do with some of our ongoing investigations.”

Pellew had been MI-6, and he’d managed to not only retire from it, but switch to a public agency. He knew what he was doing. He’d managed to get them off his back.

So had Arthur, but what he was about to do would bring the hounds baying at his door again. And yet, he somehow felt lighter once he’d relieved himself of the small scrap of paper with the important address. When Lancelot looked up from taking it, Arthur kissed him. “They’re here for Clayton. If you really want him to survive to testify, you have to go now.”

“Arthur—” Lancelot’s eyes went dark “—but they’ll think it was you that intervened—”

“I know. I’m ready for it,” Arthur lied. He slowly pushed himself away, holding Lancelot’s gaze.

The other man hesitated a moment longer, intensely searching Arthur’s face. It was clearly on the tip of his tongue to tell Arthur to go somewhere public and safe, but in the end, he simply ducked his head. When he raised it again, he was already moving towards the door, shoulders back and jaw set. Going on the hunt. The tone of his voice, however, was completely unprofessional. “Ring us up when you get to—wherever. I swear to God, Arthur, if you drop out of sight, I’ll bloody murder you myself.”

Lancelot slammed the door behind him. The sharp noise echoed a kind of click in Arthur’s head; this hadn’t been the plan, but in a strange moment of clarity, Arthur knew that the old plan hadn’t been much of a plan anyway. It’d been a stopgap, a way to stall matters without having a reason for which to stall, a reason to keep bad things from happening quite yet. Rather stupid of him…he knew perfectly well why he wanted the dark kept at bay.

All right, now Arthur thought he was ready. He spent a few moments making himself presentable, then opened the door and walked through the hallway.

“Arthur! There you are! I’d just turned around to get another glass when you vanished on me!” Mark Kernyw said. His face was flushed, and his girlfriend was noticeably absent. “Now, where were we?”

The two of them weren’t terribly familiar despite Kernyw being advisor to Tristan, but if Arthur had to put up with fulfilling _these_ responsibilities before he could get around to the business of outwitting MI-6 a second time, he’d choose Kernyw over Morgan Fay. He dredged up a polite smile. “Medieval practices of embalming, I think. Of course, they took that seriously since a damaged body wouldn’t be able to rise on the Day of Judgment and be saved.”

“Yes, yes…quite serious…in Germany they often…”

Arthur suppressed a sigh. Another ten minutes, he estimated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired in part by LJ users trin_chardin (babbling!Gawain), handsomespeck (squirrel anecdote), and ficklefordfour (air vent anecdote).


	4. Falling Weather-Glass

Arthur stuffed his wrist further into his mouth. His canine snagged on the bony point of it and he hurriedly wrenched his hand around so the teeth would slide around, but right then, the demanding mouth sucking on his prick completely snapped his concentration. He distantly registered pain as the tooth rocked slightly in its socket.

Lancelot’s lips slipped partially off as he swallowed, letting out a soft, wet popping noise that made Arthur hiss against his wrist. He grabbed at Arthur’s right knee and almost collapsed it, then switched to pulling himself up with the desk edge, pushing them both back into the chair. The swell of his cock pressed insistently up the inside of Arthur’s leg, drawing Arthur’s hand, still carrying drops of spit on the back, down to it. He asked by shoving his face into the crook of Arthur’s neck and groaning, so low Arthur could feel his bones vibrating with it. He hadn’t even needed to do that much. 

Afterward, he surprised Arthur by lingering, staying curved over Arthur almost as if he were a child being rocked to sleep. Usually when he attacked Arthur at work, he seemed to enjoy Arthur’s post-coital embarrassment even more than the actual sex, but right now he wasn’t even pushing.

“MI6 is trying to have Clayton deported to them,” he finally said. “I think Pellew’s going to win and keep him here for the trials, but he keeps asking me about you. Obliquely, because God forbid Pellew blatantly pry, but still…”

“I know.” It was interesting that Pellew would side that way, considering his background in that agency. And he lived a much more high-profile life than Arthur did…that was one option. There were others, but Arthur _liked_ this life. So much more than he’d expected, so that he found himself balking again and again at having to commit himself to starting a new one.

Lancelot propped his chin on Arthur’s shoulder, looking sharply at Arthur. His fingers tightened in Arthur’s clothes. “Whatever you do, I’ll follow.” He caught himself after the rush of words, a little taken aback at himself. Then he smiled crookedly. “So don’t do anything stupid. Or you’ll never hear the end of it, I swear.”

“I know,” Arthur said. He threaded his fingers through Lancelot’s hair and pulled him up for a kiss. Not yet. He could play the waiting game a little longer, see what the other side would do. But he didn’t have to make choices. Not yet.

“ _I_ know,” Lancelot murmured into Arthur’s mouth. He pressed his palm over Arthur’s breastbone. He sounded savage and determined. “I know, believe me.”

Arthur did.


	5. Check, Please

Galahad had his head between his hands and was slumped so far down that he was in danger of sniffing up his rice. He’d given up on even trying to take part in the conversation about fifteen minutes ago, and while Gawain normally would totally call Galahad on it, he was going to let it pass. Actually he was going to sympathize while cradling his own migraine.

Mariette had relaxed, but in a bad way. She was pouting enough for someone to balance a shotglass on her lower lip. “But it’s not legal!”

Tristan shrugged and ate more of his quesadilla. “It was when I was in France.”

“Oh. But never mind, there is still the moral quality of the act to consider—”

“Morality?” The way Tristan’s eyebrow was arched had nothing to do with surprise and everything to do with baiting. He got amused by people’s stupidities and fluster-attacks, but Gawain had never seen him… _savor_ it like this. Not even in the early days with Galahad. “Marseilles.”

Either Mariette was going to die right there, or she was going to launch herself across the table at him with her butter knife. She was the same deep red with both interpretations. “That is _unfair_. There were…there were circumstances. The _Poulain_ business was an accident. Besides—what about you and that park in the fifth _arrondissement_? The swans?”

Tristan actually flinched. After an initial hitch, he flowed with it and rocked right back, ready to counterattack. And Gawain put his head down and groaned. Good God. If they got out of this date with his sanity intact, he was going to make Tristan make it up to him for the next _month_.

“‘I haven’t hung out with you in a while,’ you said. ‘It’ll be a good way for everyone to cut loose without hangovers,’ you said. Jesus fucking Christ. Real great idea, ‘wain,” Galahad muttered.

“Shut up and get a waiter,” Gawain said. “I’ll grab the coats.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for LJ user trin_chardin as a thanks for fanart.


	6. Pre-empted Programming

Galahad did manage to get a roommate barely three days before the next rent was due, thanks to Bed’s contacts. According to him, he’d talked to the guy for about twenty minutes during the interview, and then seen him for five seconds during the move-in part. The new guy had blitzed his stuff in, then locked himself in his room with snacks, a TV and a German flag.

“Total soccer fanatic,” Galahad summed up. “But I guess that’s pretty harmless, so I’m not gonna push it. Hey, Mariette, pass the fries.”

Mariette…had her eyes fixed on the large-screen TV in the corner of the bar, and seemed to be mumbling names over and over. On the screen, France just missed a goal and Mariette squeaked out a breath, then slumped, looking utterly crushed. Then she started mumbling again. Gawain finally deciphered her words to be the last names of all the French players currently on the field.

After a second of staring at her, Galahad rolled his eyes and just grabbed the fries. “God, I might as well be single now.”

She smacked him pretty good, considering she wasn’t even looking in his direction. “ _Allez, allez_ , Henry,” she prayed.

“So what’s he look like, at least?” Gawain asked. He got the ketchup bottle and upended it, then sighed. This place had the most amazing thick-cut fries anywhere in New York City, but the bottles weren’t the nice, easy-to-use squeeze ones. They were glass, and they always seemed to be half-empty so you had to shake and shake and hope to God it went on the plate and not on your face.

On the TV, one of the players took a dive that even Gawain, who was totally a basketball man, could see was faked. Galahad’s pained expression as he rubbed his head was on the same level; his hair had to have padded most of the blow, but he still wasted plenty of effort shooting wounded looks in Mariette’s direction. “He’s really young. Like, a fucking sophomore.”

“And he can afford to share an apartment with you?” Gawain raised an eyebrow. Then he swore and dove for the napkins as the ketchup abruptly splurted out. Man, it looked like that icky experiment Tristan had forgotten about and left on the kitchen counter two days ago. “Hell, if he can afford to do that, then why’s he going for your place?”

“Because it’s actually a very nice neighborhood, and that’s why we got stuck with such a ridiculous rent in the first place, hence why I needed a new roommate after you left?” Judging from Galahad’s smart mouth, the raised eyebrow and burping ketchup wasn’t a very intimidating combination.

But still, that’d been kind of sharp for Galahad…Gawain looked a little more closely just as France apparently made a big play and Mariette threw up her arms, cheering. And in the process, hit Galahad in the nose. _That_ one looked like it really did hurt, and for the next couple of seconds, Galahad was totally obscured behind a bunch of flailing limbs as Mariette tried to apologize and keep one eye on the game. Absolutely failed at working.

“Jesus Christ, just—here, sit here.” Galahad tugged her across his lap so she was braced in the corner. Given the size of the booth, she probably had one leg still thrown over him, but in that position, she could hang over the top of the bench without any danger of elbowing him. “Okay? You can watch without killing me now?”

“ _Non_! That wasn’t a foul! Oh, this is fine.” Mariette glared at the screen some more, then abruptly caught herself and sheepishly dropped back to peck Galahad on the cheek. “Thanks.”

He actually looked a little embarrassed, though whether that was in a good way due to her affectionate gesture, or in a bad way because he thought his badass rep had just gotten belly-kicked, was completely up in the air. In the end he just sort of knuckled down and rubbed the side of his face, staring at the food. “Man, you better make this up to me later…”

“She probably has to put up with worse during March Madness, knowing you. And basketball games can run a hell of a lot longer,” Gawain snorted.

Okay, that was a natural set-up for a shut-up look from Galahad, but again, he looked a little more pissed off than he normally would’ve. Maybe Gawain was seeing things…except Galahad looked away really quick, like he knew something was wrong, too.

The rest of the bar seemed to be mostly international students tonight, so Mariette blended in pretty well. The noise also tended to cover up whenever an awkward silences dropped between Gawain and Galahad, like one did now. They didn’t usually have a lot of those. Granted, Gawain had seen less of Galahad than he had before, but they weren’t living together now. It happened.

“I don’t know what the whole story is, but Jack—that’s his name—wanted to stay on campus, and his family wanted him to move to that fancy-ass country-club frat-house. You know, the one where the rich alumni’s brats all stay. So sharing with me’s some kind of compromise.” Galahad made a disgusted face. He obviously thought he was being used on some level as the ‘ghetto kid’ again, and that had always been a surefire way to touch off his pride and temper. Pretty weird that he’d accepted this Jack, then.

“How’s he know Bed, if he’s a legacy?”

Shrugging, Galahad finished off his beer. He ducked as Mariette cursed out the TV in French and pounded the bench-top a bit, then blatantly stole one of Gawain’s last jalapeno poppers. “Dude, just say that Bed gets around and leave it at that. You really don’t want to look too closely at how he does it.”

“Half-time! Be right back,” Mariette chirped. She was already out of the booth before she’d finished talking, and by the time Galahad got around to answering, she was scooting her way to the restrooms. Probably a good move on her part, since it looked like a lot of people had been soothing their nerves with alcohol and now were suffering the consequences of that.

After a second, Galahad closed his mouth and snorted, slouching back. He stared at her retreating back with a surprisingly resentful expression. “You know, I’m not even sure if Jack’s parents really know what kind of place he’s gotten, and that’s just fucking great. My roommate and my girlfriend think I’m something to stuff under the rug.”

“If you don’t like it so much, why’d you even agree to him?” Gawain said, blinking. That had been a bit left of center.

“Because I needed to make the goddamned rent,” Galahad snapped. He looked like he was sorry about it a beat afterward, but that was a little late.

God, was that the problem? Gawain had thought they’d worked that out, but here Galahad was, shoving things down till they popped out again under their own steam, and then blaming Gawain for it. For God’s sake, he couldn’t know it was still a problem if Galahad never even mentioned it. “Hey, I said I wasn’t going to leave you in the cold—”

“Yeah, but look, we know what the rents on Tristan’s—you two’s new street run to. And you couldn’t have made both.” Now Galahad was sullen and mumbly, stuffing fries into his mouth whenever he wasn’t avoiding Gawain’s eyes.

“I think Tristan could’ve made ours by himself for one time,” Gawain pointed out.

And when Galahad did meet Gawain’s eyes? He looked like he wanted to smack Gawain for being stupid. “Yeah, probably, and he’d even be happy to. But you wouldn’t have been, and—hey, don’t pretend I’m not right. You would’ve gone guilt-tripping over it, and he would’ve thought it was something wrong with him, and then you’d both be doing that annoying moping thing till me or Arthur knocked some brains into you.”

“Tristan doesn’t mope.” He didn’t, really. Though okay, he could get very quiet and depressed, and when he was like that, he talked even less so it was hard to figure out what was wrong…but that wasn’t moping. And Gawain should know.

Of course, Galahad just rolled his eyes again, like he knew it all. But then he shrugged and flipped his fingers in a leave-it gesture, his irritation going to resignation. “Oh, forget it. Jack’s an okay guy. And it’s not a big deal as long as when his parents do come storming down, they don’t blame me, and they make sure the money, at least, lives up to the contract he signed.”

He obviously was lying, and that didn’t even begin to explain how Mariette had gotten into this conversation. She’d been kind of weird about going with him in public for the first few weeks, but she seemed pretty happy to snuggle up to him now. He couldn’t be talking about Arthur, either, because like everyone else, Arthur had seen their hook-up coming way before Galahad ever had.

“So how’s Tristan?” Galahad abruptly asked.

For a moment, Gawain wasn’t going to go with the conversation change, but then a scuffle broke out by the far end of the bar and everybody including them looked over. Opposing jerseys, so it was just fans beating on each other, but by the time Gawain got back to their table, it was too late to casually go back to the earlier conversation. Anyway, the fight had reminded him they were in kind of a crappy place for a talk that definitely was going to involve personal digging, so he reluctantly let it go. He’d have to remember to corner Galahad later, maybe after their meeting with Arthur.

“Tristan’s okay, I think. His paperwork finally went through, so he’s starting work next week. They’ve got him on the graveyard shift.” Which didn’t make Gawain happy, since it meant he’d be seeing even less of Tristan than he’d figured on, but it wasn’t going to be forever. Besides, grad students tended to operate during the same hours, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

“I would’ve thought he’d be bouncing off the damn walls. I mean, he’s actually getting paid to be the creepy lab rat he is anyway.” Galahad raised his arms over his head and stretched, then dropped them with a thunk. He yawned without bothering to cover his mouth. “Well, you know, if Tristan can bounce.”

Gawain shrugged off the sniping. Nowadays, Galahad barely tried to sound like he meant it. “He’s busy. You wouldn’t believe the hoops they make you jump before they even let you into the place.”

“That why he couldn’t make it down?” For some reason, Galahad had straightened up and was staring hard at Gawain, like he saw something wrong.

“Did it start again?” Mariette breathlessly said, rushing up. Somehow she got herself over Galahad and tucked back into the corner without ever looking away from the TV. “No? Good. Oh, there’s Thierry walking back on!”

Galahad opened his mouth, closed it, and finally just signaled for another beer. “Okay, at least I don’t fangirl guys during basketball season…”

“Nah, but you’ve been known to chug yourself sick just to get in to see your favorite team practice,” Gawain snickered. “Thank God I don’t have to clean up the bathroom after you now. I’m not gonna miss _that_.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Galahad mumbled, sinking down again. That weird resentment had flashed over his face again, but before Gawain could call him on it, his beer came and nearly got dumped over him as a shouting soccer-fan jostled the waitress. That led to Galahad taking offense, and then _that_ almost turned into a brawl…except the game ended and France was declared the winner. The entire bar blew up, and that pretty much was the end of coherent conversation for the night.

Somewhere along the line, an exuberant Mariette managed to down some beer and quickly ended up giggly and flopping all over the place, so Galahad left to take her home. Gawain stayed a little longer to finish his food.

And, if he wanted to be totally honest, because he didn’t want to head back to his new place yet. Tristan had gone deep into the Bronx on some errand and wouldn’t be back for another hour, and without him in, the apartment was just…weird. When Gawain had been living with Galahad, he’d never had this problem. Even if Galahad was out, his stuff had been tripping up and exasperating Gawain for so many years that it was comfortable, kind of, to have around.

It was stupid, Gawain decided. It wasn’t like he hadn’t spent a few days over at Tristan’s before, and Tristan hadn’t been attached to him 24-7 then, and he’d _still_ been fine.

Yeah, stupid.

* * *

Ever since they’d finally done it, Mariette had turned into a fucking _grabby_ drunk. Okay, normally Galahad was all for that, but not when he was trying to lead them home through streets clogged with soccer fans either partying or crying on the corner. If he wasn’t trying to step over some sniffling heap of facepaint or dodging the flags, he was trying to yank her hands out of his jeans. Thank God they’d gone to a place near her apartment instead of their usual hangout, which would’ve prolonged the torture by about ten minutes.

Thank God she got tired fast, too. By the time he had to get out her keys, she was slumping on him more because she wanted his shoulder as a pillow than because she was trying to rub up against his crotch. He managed to get her in and dropped off on the bed without making enough noise to attract the nosy woman down the hall.

“We won,” Mariette mumbled, curling up around her pillow.

“So you’d better be in a good mood tomorrow, because the rest of the day is going to suck.” Galahad waited a moment, then bent over for a closer look.

She was completely out.

It was annoying, yeah, but he was kind of surprised by how much so. Then again, some of that probably was due to having the new roommate thing hit, and then Gawain being a lousy talking partner during dinner earlier. Only the second time Galahad had seen him since he’d moved out, and he’d spent half the time staring at the door. The other half, he’d spent looking like he was gritting his teeth at Galahad, and for what?

“Man, if I’d wanted company to make up for you being all nuts over the Cup game, I should’ve called Bed for all the good Gawain was,” Galahad muttered. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and stared moodily down at her. Then he squinted.

A little bead of saliva was growing at the corner of her mouth. He bit back a snort and wiped it off, then poked her over so if she was going to drool, at least it’d get soaked up by the pillow right away and not run all over her face.

It looked like the soccer parties were concentrated around a couple bars, so getting back to his own apartment just took a little creative usage of backstreets. It still hadn’t hit full dark—or as dark as the city ever got—when he finally stepped inside his own door. “Hey—”

Something clattered and there was a gasp. Then Jack popped out of the kitchenette, holding a bowl of oatmeal in one hand and a napkin in the other. “You startled me. Can you stay out of the kitchen a moment? I just dropped oatmeal on the floor.”

“Sorry.” Galahad was full anyway; at least that part of dinner had worked out. “So you’re finally out?”

Jack flushed a bit, which dropped his age appearance from twelve to eight. “Eh, sorry about that. I just—”

“It’s okay, my girlfriend’s French and she’s turned into a podperson lately for the same reason.” It wasn’t really okay, at least not in the sense that Galahad wasn’t annoyed by it, but it didn’t bug him enough to be worth bitching about.

He wandered out into the living room and his toe turned up a bundle of papers. When picked up, they ended up being the analyses he was supposed to have read and taken notes on by nine, tomorrow morning, so Galahad carried them over to the sofa and sacked out.

“Well, I still feel like I owe you an apology,” Jack suddenly said. He’d gone back to the kitchen, so all Galahad could see was the top of his spine as he mopped up the floor. “I think you were asking if I wanted to go out earlier?”

“Uh, yeah.” Technically, Galahad had been practically shouting to be heard through the door and over Jack’s TV, but whatever. He had two hundred pages to crash through right now. “Me, my girlfriend and my best friend ate out—she wanted to catch the France-Brazil game on a big screen.”

God, that’d been funny to hear coming from Mariette. Normally she was all, “If you can see the players, then what difference does the screen size make? It’s just bigger.”

“Oh. Good game, that.” Jack straightened up, then put his bowl down on the counter and started eating again. “I’m sorry, really. I would’ve loved to come out, but I—well, I was being a bit stupid. England got booted out earlier.”

Galahad marked his current spot by dog-earing the page, then dug his hand into the sofa cushions till he found a pen. It was purple…must’ve been one of Mariette’s, then…but he figured it’d do. “I was wondering about the German flag. No offense, but you really don’t look like that.”

“Huh? Oh, no, I don’t go for England. I was happy they got kicked out. As for the flag…well, they’ve turned out better than people thought and Ireland’s not in the running, sadly, so this Cup I’m cheering for them. It’s just that Portugal gets to advance, and I hate them more than I do England.” Most of that had been in a mushy mumble, but Jack swallowed in time to sound clearly sheepish. “Sorry. I’m rambling, and I think you said you don’t really follow soccer…”

“Nah, I’m more for basketball.” Really, Jack wasn’t all that bad. Of all the people Galahad had interviewed, he definitely was the least likely to have any habits that might one day make Galahad snap with a butcher knife in hand. He was all right.

Till whatever family problem he was running from came back to bite him _and_ Galahad in the ass. Honestly, with Mariette still too terrified of her parents’ disapproval to tell them she was even dating, Galahad should’ve known better. And to that his inner-Gawain voice said—

\--his inner-Gawain voice could go fuck itself. Gawain wasn’t living with him anymore. Fine, it wasn’t as if they could’ve roomed together their whole lives, and Gawain probably was happier now that he didn’t have to go as far to jump Tristan, but…but…but fuck. This was whining, wasn’t it?

“I’m supposed to be the whiner,” Galahad muttered. Hell if he knew why he was trying so hard not to.

“What? Did you say something?” Jack looked up from the sink. Apparently he’d finished eating while Galahad had been brooding around, like he was some dumbass tragic hero.

Galahad waved a negating hand in the air, then scribbled a margin note. Then he squinted at it. After ten seconds, he decided it was too illegible even for him and scratched it out, but when it came time to rewrite it, he couldn’t remember quite what it had been.

The water in the kitchen turned off. A few moments later, Jack walked across the room and into the bedroom hallway with a muttered, awkward “’night.”

Couple days till the next round of games started, if Galahad remembered right. Maybe he’d just make Mariette come over, and she and Jack could yell at the TV set while Galahad tried to figure out how he was going to talk to Gawain now. It’d just been weird earlier; a couple times Galahad had started to say something, only to realize it depended on Gawain knowing something that he would’ve without any explanation if he’d been still living with Galahad. And Gawain hadn’t even been out a month yet. Was Galahad going to have to spend half his time updating Gawain now?

Maybe Galahad could just leave Jack be, and do the whole polite distant thing instead of trying to make him into a sort-of replacement for Gawain. ‘cause that was kind of redundant when Galahad was still also trying to make Gawain stay Gawain. And this was making _no_ sense now. Too bad they didn’t know any handy Psych majors.

Galahad sighed and rolled his pen between his fingers. Work first. He had to finish this because this was due to kick his ass first if it got screwed up. Other stuff later. Hopefully.

* * *

The coffee machine beeped just as Gawain stumbled out of the hallway into the kitchen, rubbing at one eye and blinking sleepily with the other. He yawned, stared, then yawned again before any kind of comprehension made it onto his face. “’morning.”

“It’s three-thirty. You don’t have to be up for another three hours,” Tristan said.

“Really?” Gawain grabbed a few times for the clock on top of the fridge before he finally got hold of it and brought it down to look. He shrugged, then put it back and opened the fridge. “Huh. Well, I’m up now, so…um. Tristan.”

He’d trailed off to stare at something on the egg-shelf. Tristan leaned forward to look, then suppressed a wince. “Sorry. I forgot it in the lab—Avalon’s lab, and they called me to pick it up yesterday. I’m taking it to work tomorrow.”

“It’s not going to…leak, is it?” Gawain muttered, warily poking at the bag.

“It shouldn’t.” It’d been double-bagged, and Tristan had used the heavy-duty plastic, too. But he reminded himself to keep browsing the student move-out ads for a cheap second fridge anyway; Gawain sometimes went looking for a snack when he was still too asleep to notice he was dragging half the blankets with him, let alone what he was taking out to eat.

After a moment, Gawain seemed to accept that and pushed the bag back to get at the butter. He tossed that on the counter, then pulled out the milk as well. Toast, then.

“Turns out Galahad couldn’t get his new roommate to come along,” Gawain said. “But now we know the guy’s an undergrad, follows soccer, has a rich family, and is named Jack Hammond.” He started to get out the bread, then stopped. “Uh. Don’t take that as a signal to run a background check on him, okay? I’m sure he’s fine.”

He probably was, but Tristan decided he might just do a little general fact-checking. Not enough to qualify as a full profile, unless something really odd stood out. “How are they getting along?”

The toaster clicked as Gawain pushed the bread down. Then he settled back against the counter, waiting for it to pop back up. His fingers drummed along the edge, and occasionally he’d pull his lower lip back into his mouth to chew on it.

“Should I get to know the people in Homicide better?” Tristan asked.

The side of Gawain’s mouth pulled up, and then he laughed a little. But he didn’t look any less pensive. “No, I think they’re fine. It’s just—some things Galahad said.”

The first thought Tristan had was that Galahad had finally blown up over Gawain moving out. He’d been relatively…all right, impressively mature about it so far, but Tristan had been counting the days. But then, if that had been the case, Gawain would’ve come back pissed off and feeling guilty, and he would’ve told the whole story by now.

“You talk to Mariette much?” Gawain suddenly queried. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Tristan’s confusion, and was starting to make a sheepish face when the toaster dinged. “Sorry, that came out of nowhere. It’s just that Galahad said something about her not telling her parents about him.”

“That’s probably true,” Tristan decided after a moment’s thought. “I don’t speak much with her, but her parents are very strict and righteous. She’s very different from how she was in France. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s because she thinks it’s all right now that her parents can’t find out.”

Gawain grimaced as he slathered butter over his toast. “Shit.”

Tristan got them some coffee. He felt a yawn coming on and belatedly swallowed it back, mildly startled. He hadn’t thought his night had been that exhausting; all he’d done was get his new desk and lab space in order.

“Galahad’s touchy about his background—well, you’ve seen that already. He might act like he doesn’t care, but getting into college, and then into grad school? That was _huge_ for him.” Some of the butter melted and ran off the side of the bread slice, so Gawain swiped it off with his thumb before it hit the counter. He sucked the butter off, glancing up. When he saw Tristan watching he paused, then grinned a little and licked more slowly. But then he turned serious again. “He just hates it when people think he’s a smart _ghetto_ kid. And you know, he’s right. It’s fucking arrogant to just write us off like that, as if that’s the only thing we could ever be.”

“Mariette probably doesn’t mean it that way. She’s just terrified of her parents,” Tristan said. He downed some coffee, but didn’t feel any caffeine buzz afterward. He experimentally drank some more with the same lack of effect: he really _was_ tired. “I’m not positive they would put their love for her above their principles, like Arthur would.”

Crunchy bits of toast scattered over the counter as Gawain chowed down. He chewed and swallowed, then noticed the crumbs and made a face. “I can buy that, I guess. But still, it’s not really fair to Galahad…I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t called her on that yet, considering how she goes on about honesty.” He paused in thought, then looked up and across the room. “He must really love her.”

And if Galahad figured that out without it coming in the middle of a tearing fight, then Tristan would be truly impressed by his progress.

“So you think Arthur’d do that?” Gawain abruptly asked. “’cause you know, when Lancelot and Guinevere pop in to visit him now, they always look a little…strained.”

Tristan just looked at Gawain. The problem never was what Arthur would do, when push came to shove. It always was whether he’d be able to get over it afterward.

“Just checking. That’s good. Happy Arthur means less undergrads hanging around.” Gawain glanced up, then snickered. “Slightly less. At least they aren’t always asking if he’s okay and if they can do something for him.”

“Do you think Galahad will let Mariette slide much longer?” The coffee really wasn’t doing any good, so Tristan poured the rest of his out in the sink. The yawn finally caught up with him then.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the counter because it made him a little dizzy. Then he turned a little as a hand touched his side. It smoothed down and Gawain molded himself against Tristan’s back, nuzzling the nearest ear. Tristan hummed a little, tilting his head so Gawain’s tongue could move further forward…and yawned again. And at the same time, Gawain drew back to yawn himself.

After an awkward, regretful moment, Gawain laughed softly and squeezed Tristan. “Hell. We’ve got to figure out better hours.”

“Sorry,” Tristan mumbled. He started to reach for him, but then Gawain pulled away and it turned more into a grab. It was rushed and he could feel Gawain stiffening up in question, but it just was…it’d been a few days since Tristan had been awake enough, and at the same time as Gawain, to do this. “Schedule should settle down in a week or so.”

Gawain had been patient, as usual, but a sign that that was running out was the slight beat before he replied. “S’okay. I just hope it’s a week—it gets weird here without you.”

Tristan was too tired to wince. At least physically. He knew he wasn’t normal and the stuff he kept around wasn’t normal, and he didn’t generally care what other people saw when they looked at the evidence of his life. But the move had been a big deal for Gawain, and it’d been just as much about moving out on Galahad as moving in with Tristan, so he’d wanted it to go well.

“It’s not you, it’s your stuff,” Gawain added. He made an irritated noise. “Okay, bad way to say that. I meant it’s not your stuff when you’re not around…well, it is, but it’s not the same. When you are around—”

After the first moment, Gawain relaxed and kissed Tristan back. Then he moved to rub his cheek down the side of Tristan’s face. His eyes were closed; Tristan could tell by how the lashes were tickling his skin. “I’m not sure, actually. If Galahad doesn’t blow up right away, then I really don’t know when he might bring it up,” he said.

“I’ll be around more in a week,” Tristan promised.

Gawain didn’t say ‘okay’ or ‘I hope so.’ He nodded. Then he gave Tristan another squeeze before stepping back, yawning. “Gonna finish my breakfast. Grocery run today—you need anything I don’t know about?”

“No, I’m fine.” Tristan actually wasn’t—not completely, but sometimes bodily exhaustion just won out. And he could tell Gawain had a little patience left, and just relying on that for now was something he had to trust on.

Once he crawled into bed, he slept deeply and soundly. But that had everything to do with necessity, and once he was rested, he spent a long time staring at the clutter of dissection kits and glass jars he had on the dresser across the room from the bed.   
* * *

Vaguely remembering something about a new roommate, Mariette carefully pushed open the door. A quick peek around Galahad’s apartment told her this mysterious person was nowhere in sight, but Galahad’s feet propped up on the sofa arm were. The toes curled slightly as she watched, then flopped out of sight as he turned. Papers spilled over the side and drifted to the floor as a soft slurring snore filled the air.

She would’ve snorted to herself, but the aspirin had only just kicked in and she was a little wary of provoking her receding hangover. So instead she eased herself inside and went into the kitchen area to do something about breakfast. The sink was empty and the drying-rack was full, which had to be the roommate. It seemed like he was at least as tidy as Gawain, which was good. Galahad didn’t let things go to the point that they became health hazards, but he did let them get to a state where it was a wonder he could ever find anything.

He woke up right around when she’d finished the crêpes and moved on to the sausages. She didn’t bother looking behind her when the cursing and mad paper-rustling started, though she did jump when something thumped heavily to the ground.

“Jack, what—oh, Mariette.” Loud whuffing noise. “Hey, you’re cooking?”

“You have a meeting with Kitty in forty minutes, and I knew you would save all the work for the last minute. Did you finish, or do you have more to do?” she replied.

He mumbled grumpily and threw more paper around, which she thought meant no, he was done with that, but he still had to hurry because of other things. It was on the tip of her tongue to scold him for being a procrastinator _again_ , as if it’d been any less painful in the past, but then the sausages started to spit fat and she had to turn it down.

Well, no, that was an excuse, just as the cooking was an excuse.

“Well, did _you_ finally get a good night’s sleep? Didn’t wake up yelling ‘ _Allez les Bleus!_ , did you?” Galahad retorted, somehow tapping into her current train of thought. “Gah. It’s over by this weekend, right?”

More like driving a jackhammer into it. But as much as Mariette bristled at his comments, she held her tongue. She just banged the sausages onto a plate a little bit hard.

One of them jumped out, then rolled nearly to the end of the counter. Galahad stumbled up to that end and stared blearily down at it, then absently picked up the sausage and popped it into his mouth. She made a face at him and he made one right back, trying to rub off the grease-trail with his hand. Mariette did throw the towel at him.

He let it bounce off his face before he half-heartedly scrubbed at the counter. “Jesus. We didn’t even get to the sex part and we’re already having the make-up breakfast, with a side of sniping. Isn’t it pre-feminist to think that a couple of skinny pancakes can fix everything?”

“You’re such a jerk sometimes. Why do I cook? You can do it for yourself,” she muttered.

“I don’t have the slightest idea. Maybe you’re a masochist?”

“Maybe you’re an—asshole.”

“Maybe—fuck it, I’ve got a meeting to go to.” Galahad turned around and stomped back to the couch, where he started grabbing and ordering papers.

Mariette irritably turned off the stove and got herself a plate and a fork and knife. Then she sat down and put food on her plate, but though it smelled delicious, she couldn’t quite bring herself to eat it. And a couple moments later, Galahad stopped what he was doing and staring at his fistful of papers in the same way she felt.

“Hell,” he sighed. “I can cook, but not much. Gawain did most of that, but now that he’s gone I’m really…”

“He’s not _gone_. And you always get other people to cook for you.” She just barely managed not to mention specific people. She wasn’t sure whether he was going with this, but Galahad suddenly looked so depressed…she had to kick her heels into the floor to keep from getting up.

Galahad snorted. Then he shoved the papers into his backpack and carried the whole thing over to the table. He sat down across from her and stared at the food. “He’s not like, right _there_ now either. All my life, he’s been the only one who’s always around. Everyone else goes. And now he can leave, too, and look, that is fine with me. He’s got his own life. I’m just kind of bitching here, okay?”

“I’d be here,” Mariette impulsively said.

He looked up fast then and she blushed, but didn’t blink even though he was staring so hard at her that she thought the back of her head was turning red, too. “No matter what happens and what anyone says?” he skeptically asked.

Mariette opened her mouth and stuttered. Then she ducked her head and squeezed her fingers.

“Fuck—never mind. No, really. It’s not like—” Galahad briefly was a little green “—we’re gonna get married tomorrow. So it’s a stupid question. Don’t answer it.”

“But I _want_ to be that to you.” Now her flush was a full-out burn, but Mariette managed to lift her chin after a momentary hesitation. She did mean it.

Galahad blinked in surprise, then stared at her. His gaze slowly went from shocked to thankful to regretful, which didn’t make sense to her. Then it did.

He beat her to the talking. “Hey, your parents are your parents. Whatever.”

“It is not whatever,” she snapped. Then she put up her elbows on the table and pressed her hands against her face. “It—I can’t just now, but I want—”

“Mariette. It’s _fine_. I don’t care.” But he sounded like he cared a lot, only he was ignoring it.

Suddenly Mariette felt very small and guilty and young, like when she’d stayed a few weeks with her very religious aunt and had been taken to confession for the first time, with that terrifying old priest and the small stuffy cubicle. “Are you going to eat my breakfast?” she finally said.

“Mmmph?”

She incredulously looked up, and Galahad stared back with a half-stuffed mouth of food. He shrugged at her as he swallowed, then glanced back at his plate. “Hey, these are good—I mean, better. You added something to them.”

Mariette opened her mouth, then closed it and shoved her chair back from the table. She got up, walked around, and dropped onto Galahad’s lap, slinging her arms around his neck, and then she kissed him hard and hungrily while he was still trying to ask her something. He had bits of crêpe stuck in his teeth, and they got knocked loose and rolled between their tongues, which was a little weird, but then his hands shoved up under her shirt and he had _cold_ fingers—Mariette yelped and he took them away. She bit at his lip and grabbed them back; he snorted under his breath and—

\--“Oh, God—I’m so sorry. I’ll—bathroom—”

Galahad half-held in his groan as footsteps hastily retreated and Mariette more or less died of embarrassment on top of him. “That was Jack, by the way,” he said. “He’s rooting for Germany.”

“Oh?” She gathered a few scraps of dignity. “Invite him to come over with you Saturday to watch the game. Then…then you can stay for the weekend? Just in case my team loses?”

“Both of us?” Galahad asked. He hissed when she hit him. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding! Okay, Jesus…at least it’ll give you somebody to pound on besides me…”

Mariette just grumbled and shoved her face into his shoulder. He tugged at her arm, then let out a long breath and patted her head.

“Eat,” she muttered. “You’re going to be late.”

“Kitty went to university in England, right? So she’ll understand if I say I got delayed by the World Cup-- _ow_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Outtake: After the 2006 Final_
> 
> **Gawain:** How’s Mariette?
> 
> **Galahad:** *looking frazzled* You know, if every sportswriter in the world wasn’t already doing it for me, I’d be punching Zidane in the face right now. And he isn’t even her favorite player. At this rate, if I ever meet Thierry Henry, I’ll have to kill him just because I’m so damn sick of hearing her moan his name.
> 
> **Gawain:** What, the comforting part isn’t fun?
> 
> **Galahad:** Not when she won’t let go of that stupid flag.


End file.
